Sermon for Maundy Thursday WHAT I HAVE VOWED I WILL PAY
Theme: Death will not deter Jesus from fulfilling the vow He spoke to you: “I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. Buried and entombed in the belly of the great fish, Jonah remains confident in God the Father’s promise of resurrection and life. Jonah’s confidence in the resurrection makes him able to insist that he also will keep his own promises. This is how Jonah concludes his prayer to God, “But I with the voice of thanksgiving WILL sacrifice to You [O LORD]; what I have vowed I WILL pay.” Dear Christian friends, In the old days, a man’s word was his bond and his vow. At least, that is what the graybeards will tell you. Those days—if they ever existed—are now over. Today we have mastered the art of breaking any and all vows: · Contracts are now flippantly entered and flippantly broken. A contract is your vow that you will faithfully pay for what you purchase. Break your contract and you have broken your vow. · Personal checks are now useless in many places because so many people have written checks fraudulently, breaking their vow of payment even while they sign their name. · Marriages are easily broken, despite the legal vow spoken by a man and a woman in the presence of legal witnesses. · Confirmation students frequently turn away, forget about, and break their confirmation vow almost as soon as the vow has been spoken. · As a rule of thumb, not even a trustworthy person can be trusted because too many others have already proven untrustworthy and have already broken too many vows. Where can you find someone who means what he says? Who can be relied upon without doubt to fulfill the vow he has spoken to you? Take a look a Jonah because Jonah is pointing you toward Jesus. Jonah has been swallowed up by death and yet Jonah remains confident that he will live again. When Jonah lives, he will fulfill his vow. Jonah does not say exactly what vow he has spoken, but it does not really matter. Jonah prayed, I am driven away from Your sight [O LORD]; Yet I shall AGAIN look upon Your holy temple. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever Yet You brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. I with the voice of thanksgiving WILL sacrifice to You; What I have vowed I WILL pay. Jonah is a prophet. That means Jonah speaks God’s Words. Even in the hours of his death, Jonah is speaking prophetically. Jonah is voicing the Words of God—even the Words of Jesus, who was yet to be born. Jonah prays in the form of a psalm, and all God’s psalms are about Jesus. Jonah’s words are Jesus’ Words, and in Jonah’s mouth Jesus declares from the pit of death, “What I have vowed I will pay.” No, we do not know exactly what vow Jonah made that he insists that he will yet pay once his life has been brought up from the pit. We have not heard Jonah’s vow, but Jesus spoke His vow plainly and clearly in the hour of His death: Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Then comes Jesus’ vow, which He speaks, as it were, from the belly of death: “I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom.” I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever Yet You brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. I with the voice of thanksgiving WILL sacrifice to You; What I have vowed I WILL pay. Where can you find someone who means what he says? Who can be relied upon without doubt to fulfill the vow he has spoken to you? Take a look at Jesus. In Holy Communion Jesus promises you His body and His blood for the forgiveness of your sins. At His first Holy Communion Jesus vowed to you that He will always be present with you here at this meal. “I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom.” Note: We do not need to think that the Father’s kingdom is someplace far away from us, up in heaven or far into the future. No, the Father’s kingdom is where His Son Jesus is. The Kingdom of God drew near when Christ walked flesh-and-blood upon the earth (Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:14) and the Kingdom of God likewise draws near where the body and blood of Christ are. So Jonah speaks a vow in the hour of his death, fully confident that his resurrection will enable him to complete and fulfill what he has vowed to do. In the same way, on the night He was betrayed, your Lord Jesus likewise spoke a vow to you in the hour of His death. “I will drink this cup again with you.” Like Jonah’s vow, Jesus’ vow is rooted in the certainly of His resurrection. What does all this mean for you? Simply this: Here in Holy Communion, you have Someone drinking with you who may be trusted. Here in Holy Communion, you have someone who keeps His Word, and not even death can prevent Him from fulfilling His vow. Here in Holy Communion, Jesus promises you forgiveness and life. You can bet your life that you have received and you shall also yet receive what He has promised. The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 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